Getting Old
by Quazie89
Summary: Lightning harbors fears and thoughts about getting old.


Hello, everybody! Here's another Cars story I wrote awhile back. It's called Getting Old. It's sort of a sequel to Doc's Lesson, another one of my Cars Fics, but you might be able to read this first without having to read that one, and it takes place several years after the third movie. I told this one from Lightning's point of view, though, which is something I have never done before, just to try something a little different. I hope you enjoy it!

I had gotten old.

I couldn't believe it.

The very thing Doc had said would happened all those years ago had happened, and it had happened just as he said it would: when I would least expect it, and it had felt like a boulder had crushed my hood, something else he claimed I would experience, but it hadn't been something that had happened over night, like I had thought it would, judging by the way Doc had talked, even though it had felt like it. No, it had been a slow process that had gradually progressed over the past couple of years, even before the wreck, no matter how much I would've liked to have blamed my rapidly aging state on the incident, which had been, without a doubt, the most devastating, life-altering crisis of my life. I knew I had started feeling my age a couple of years prior to the crash, but the effects of it hadn't started taking a toll on me until afterwards.

I ached in places I didn't know I had, and all I wanted to do was nap all day, which was something Cruz Ramirez, the young, rookie racer I was training now, never failed to let me forget and always liked to taunt me about.

On some days I hurt worse than on others, especially on days when it was colder than it normally was throughout the year. On those days I could feel the pain the worst in my aching joints, as Cruz liked to call them, mostly in my axles, but I could also feel the hurt shooting all along my rusty, battered body, too, a crippling, burning sensation that almost paralyzed me on days whenever it got the worst.

I tried not to let on how much I hurt, not wanting to worry Sally, knowing how much she already fretted over me, but it was getting harder and harder with the passage of time, not so easy to shake off as it had once been. I wasn't as young as I used to be. I was getting old, and I could feel all my years staring to catch up to me, piling up on me like they had never had before. I was becoming more and more like Doc with each passing day, and the thought scared me more than I would've liked to admit.

I grimaced, feeling ashamed for having such resentful thoughts about my old mentor and friend. I had loved him and still missed him terribly. He had been my hero and my friend as well as my teacher, and he had meant a lot to me. I could only hope to be half the pit crew chief to Cruz as he was to me. He had died a few years back and we had buried him on a little hill overlooking Radiator Springs. I hoped to be buried next to him when my time came.

Suddenly overcome by weariness, I closed my heavy-lidded eyes, fighting back tears and exhaustion. I had never felt the crushing weight of age more than I had at that moment, and it seemed as if it was smothering me, preventing me from breathing in the much-needed air I needed to live. Afraid, alone, and vulnerable, I gasped for breath, hacking and wheezing.

"Are you all right, Stickers?"

My eyes flew open, and once I had blinked my blurry gaze into focus, I could see Sally Carrera parked in front me, wearing a worried expression on her grill.

"Why, Sally!" I exclaimed, startled by her sudden appearance, having not heard her come in the garage. "What are you doing here?"

She frowned. "I came to check on you," she said, scrolling her disapproving gaze across the sad, dismal space of Doc's old garage, where I had been holding myself up for several weeks now, ever since the air had turned colder. "You've been spending too much time in here lately and I was starting to worry about you."

I fought to compose myself, taking a deep breath, once I had gotten some of it back. "I'm all right," I said, and was surprised that I was, but pleasantly so, feeling a little more relaxed now that Sally was there. "You know how I like to come in here when I need some time alone to think." I chuckled wryly. "And I needed some time to think. "

She shook her hood, giving me a small smile. "Oh, Stickers," she said, and drove up to me, letting herself fall against my side. "What am I going to do with you?"

"You don't have to do anything," I said, kissing her on the side. "I'm fine now that you're here."

I blinked in bewilderment, astonished to realize that it was true and that I meant it.

The End


End file.
